Knowing
by Fanfic'emup
Summary: Alone and grieving, the Doctor is doing everything he can to avoid death, but he can't avoid River Song. With his death knell sounding in his head, the Doctor has to face thirty-two hours trapped with a woman he can barely stand, who knows him better than he wants to accept. But it's what River doesn't know that can make this night one of the most important he has left.


Red-hot meteors the size of golf balls pelted the alien landscape. Running like fleethounds, the two figures protected by a failing sonic shield dashed across the burning waste toward the insulated Shower Shelter. "Get it open!" the woman shouted.

"I'm trying!" the man replied, his tone vexed. "I don't think you realize how hard it is to keep up a sonic shield and open a lock at the same time!"

More of the burning rocks struck the sonic shield and veered away, discouraged from their original path. "You used to be able to do two things at once!" the woman snapped. "Or you will, anyway."

"Shut up," the Doctor muttered. He whipped off his jacket and flung it over River Song's head. "Hold that up."

With the suit jacket spread tight above her head, the Doctor released the sonic shield and worried the lock open. With a sudden CLICK, the door swung wide. The Doctor pushed River in ahead of him, and then followed, sealing the door behind him. He found the power switch by the door and turned on the lights.

They were in a Deranian meteor shelter, sealed metal bunkers that dotted the Deranian landscape for those unfortunate — or plain stupid — enough to get caught in one of their monthly meteor showers, when the moon of Derania passed through the rings in the gas giant it orbited. There was a sturdy table, a utility bed with rough, papery sheets and a fluffy coverlet of spun plastic, and a shelf of survival equipment, including oxygen masks and canisters of water. The random patter of meteorites on the roof sounded like hail, or heavy rain, fading and growing heavier by turns.

"I told you to get out before the meteor shower," River chided him, and threw the smoldering jacket on the floor. "Now we won't be able to get back to the TARDIS for nearly thirty-two hours!"

"You aren't going back to the TARDIS," the Doctor snapped. He stomped on the jacket, smothering the embers. "You're going wherever you're going to go, and leave me in peace."

River frowned at him and then smiled. "Oh, I forgot, you're all protective of your TARDIS when you're still like this. Don't let anyone in, she's all mine, no one can appreciate her—"

"I let people in," the Doctor said. "I just don't let YOU in."

River looked away with a knowing smirk. "Whatever you say, Doctor," she said.

The Doctor took a deep breath and managed not to snap at her again. He really didn't like River. He didn't like her knowing smugness or her insulting patronization or her unwavering faith, either. And he owed her. Big time. He'd never before been faced with someone for whom he had this kind of foreknowledge. He'd met people out of order before — Melanie Bush, Sally Sparrow — but River Song was different. Knowing that she was one day going to die to save him made him very uncomfortable.

He knew this one thing about her. But she seemed to know EVERYTHING about him, and it drove him half mad. It wouldn't be so bad if she wasn't so smugly self-assured about it. The first time he had seen her — in his personal timeline — after the Library he was very pleased to see her, alive and well and striding through life with confidence. This had changed almost immediately, as she started treating him like the errand boy. Since he'd lost Donna he'd allowed her to call him once, and actually went looking for her another time, just because he was curious about an article she had written in an interstellar magazine, but otherwise he avoided her. This time they'd run into each other by accident — something which disturbed him. There were only two or three people in the universe he'd ever met repeatedly "by accident". One was Donna Noble and the other was the Master. He was psychically linked to the Master due to events almost beyond their control, starting even when they were children, and Donna Noble's lifeline had been inextricably bound to his by the effects of the metacrisis.

River... he didn't like to think about what meeting "by accident" meant.

Especially since she seemed to go out of her way to be extremely annoying.

"What were you even doing here right before meteor fall, anyway?" the Doctor asked, annoyed.

"Same as you. At least we saved the prince. If you'd just left when I told you to, we wouldn't have gotten caught!"

"I don't follow orders from you, or anyone!" the Doctor snapped.

"You usually aren't so stupid!" River retorted. "What were you trying to do, MAKE the assassin kill you instead?"

"Yes!" the Doctor said. "If he went after me you and the prince could get to safety. It's not my fault that you were too stupid to leave!"

"Don't you use my words against me!" River said. "I've never seen you so reckless, it's like you're TRYING to get yourself killed."

"I am not!" the Doctor snarled.

"Have you got some kind of a death wish? What is wrong with you? You've got to stop this, love, it's not fair. I mean, you're always a little fey, and I hate it when you're so young, but I've never seen you so stupid before."

The Doctor closed his eyes. "Don't do this," he said.

"Do what?"

"Talk about me like I'm not here."

River laughed, and it sounded very cruel to his ears. "I know you're here, Sweetie," River said. "I can't miss it."

"Well then, quit talking about me," the Doctor said. "Quit talking about what I'm going to be, or what's going to happen. You don't know what's going to happen, and I don't want to know."

"Of course you don't," River said with a smile. "Spoilers."

The Doctor rolled his eyes. "I'm starting to hate that word."

River looked smug. "You used to use it on me all the time."

The Doctor surged to his feet. "There you go again!" he said.

"What?"

"Talking about my future! And it's not even my future, I'm becoming more and more sure of that all the time, so quit it!"

"Of course it's your future," River said.

"I don't think so," the Doctor said. "I'm becoming more and more certain that I don't have much of a future, and I can't fight it off much longer. I can still hear them, pulsing in the corner of my brain, singing, calling, an ood in the snow, and it doesn't matter how I try to push it away it keeps coming back until I can't even sleep, and soon I'll have to answer or it will drive me utterly mad, but I know. I know the moment I answer it's all over."

River frowned. "What do you mean, over?"

"I'm going to die," he muttered. "It's all been foreseen."

River's face cleared. "Ohh," she said. She pulled her diary out of her pocket and looked at a page somewhere toward the beginning. "So it's this time, is it?"

The Doctor glared at her. "What do you mean, this time?"

She snapped the book shut and looked at him. "Well, at least you've been warned."

The Doctor rolled his eyes. "I knew it."

River frowned at him. "Knew what?"

"You!" the Doctor snapped. "I knew that you knew! I should have known all along that all this arrogant flirtation wasn't really for ME."

River looked confused. "I don't know what you're on about, love," River said. "You've been through this before, you'll go through it again."

"How do you know?" the Doctor said. "This could be it. Whatever they're foreseeing could really be the end. Nothing else. No regenerations, no supposed future with you and me, everything you know could unexist tomorrow. Time isn't fixed, you know that."

River looked smug, and the Doctor glared at her. "It isn't," he said.

"So you say," River said with a smile.

That smile infuriated him. He grabbed his sonic screwdriver and snatched River's diary out of her hand. At her protest he forced the sonic against the leather cover. With an angry whine the sonic vibrated, causing a thin line of smoke to issue from the book. With a flick of his hand he tossed the book back at her. A still smoldering scorch mark marred the blue cover. "When I last saw that book, there was no scorch mark," the Doctor said. "The future-past has already been altered."

River's eyes narrowed. "Theatrics are uncalled for, Doctor," she snapped angrily. "For all you know, I'll grab a nanopatch tomorrow."

"And for all you know, this could be it! This could be it, it could be real. And even if it isn't, even if the unthinkable doesn't happen and there is a future, there's no telling what it will be. I could turn into the Valeyard, for all you know. I could be worse than the Master. It could be hell."

River smiled. "It won't be so bad."

Her knowing smile was like a blade, as if she herself were the executioner. The Doctor rounded on her. "No doubt you do think that!" he snapped. "No doubt you can't wait! No doubt the arrogant bastard who has somehow instilled in you that THIS is how I like you to treat me is someone you absolutely adore! But I hate him already!"

River shook her head, patronizing. "You're so young, now. You never get on with yourself. You know that."

"Shut up!" the Doctor roared. "I am not young, I certainly don't feel young, and I don't want to hear any more! Stop talking about him for one minute! Stop acting as if you know me so well, when you don't! Stop acting as if this is like going to the barbers to get a haircut, and I'll walk gently into that good night like a dutiful ghost. Has it occurred to you for one self-centered second that I like being me, and I don't want to die!" He kicked the shelf of emergency supplies, and heat bandages and oxygen masks went flying across the room. "I DON'T WANT TO DIE!" He screamed impotently at the empty air, the universe which bounced him around like a pinball, and which was so massively unfair.

River blinked. He was wildly distraught, the pain and fear etched deeply on his face, and she'd never heard him scream quite like this. In such terror. Never. In all her history with him. The truth of the matter was, it really hadn't occurred to her. She was so used to the Doctor as he was — as he would become — that she wasn't really thinking of this one as a real entity, with feelings and opinions and a personality of his own. She was just thinking of him as unfinished clay, waiting to turn into the person she knew. And as she sat in shock the Doctor turned away from her and flopped onto the utility bed, almost crying.

River felt terrible. She didn't know this Doctor very well — he was all confusion and distraction and he seemed very uncomfortable with her. He seemed dark to her, as if he was in shadow. Mostly they nodded at each other as they passed. She teased him a lot — she always did when he was young. It was her only retaliation against the way he'd mercilessly shown her up when SHE had first met HIM. Of course, she'd only met this Doctor three or four times, and they hadn't had much face to face time — usually they were doing too much running to talk. He was very self centered, unwilling to let anyone near his heart — hearts. And he always traveled alone, which was not like him in the future. She thought this regeneration must have been a bit of a loner, so she didn't press him. But he seemed so pretty and self-assured that she'd just assumed he was like her Doctor in a different face. But it was beginning to occur to her that this might not be the case.

He was so scared.

Slowly, breaking every rule she knew, she crept forward and placed her hand on his hair. It was lighter and finer than her Doctor's. She wasn't supposed to touch him before they really became... all they would become. It was awkward. But she really couldn't help herself. He needed someone, — she knew how much he needed someone — and she was the only person there.

At the touch of her hand he tensed, but he did not cringe away. Finally, as she did not otherwise try to caress or distract him, he relaxed under her undemanding touch. "It's not fair," he whispered.

"Life isn't fair," River said quietly. "You've always known that."

"Shut up," the Doctor muttered, but it was without venom. "I don't want to hear anything that any future me may have to say to me at this point. He's got a lifetime ahead of him, I'M the one who's dying." His shoulders shook once as he caught a sob before it escaped. He rolled over, away from River's attempt at a comforting hand. "I miss Donna," he whispered. He instantly wished he hadn't said it, as the words made him sob in earnest. He grabbed a pillow and pushed it under his head, holding it tightly. He wished to every deity in every pantheon ever that he hadn't chosen to break down in front of, of all people, River Song.

River regarded him with a true gentleness, something he hadn't seen in her before. "Who was Donna?" she asked.

He blinked at her. "You don't know?"

River shook her head. "You've mentioned a Donna, but that's all you said. I don't even know if she traveled with you or not. You wouldn't talk about her. You said it was important I don't know."

The Doctor lost his temper, which was a relief, because anger was better than despair. "Well, forget him," he snapped. He sat up. "Don't know who he thinks he's protecting. The universe should know of Donna Noble. Do you hear me? Every single sentient creature on every planet in every time should be singing songs of Donna Noble." He stared River down. "Donna Noble was the most amazing woman in the universe," he said. "She saved my life. She saved your life. She saved the entire universe, all of reality, for all time. But that's not even important. That is the least of her. Even before she became the most important person in the universe. Everything she did would cut right to the point, and she asked the questions I'd never been asked before. She was brilliant. Absolutely brilliant."

And he couldn't stop.

For the next three hours he told River Song about Donna Noble. He told her about how she'd shout out, "Oi, don't get all space man, what does it mean?" and how she'd stand up to him, and then how she'd utterly trust him, even when what he asked her to do was so hard for her, or so frightening, or even when he wasn't there to tell her what to do.

"She was the easiest, kindest person I have ever been with. She was my best friend. You can't know what that means, to someone like me. I don't know many details about what you end up being to me or him — or even another him eventually, — and I don't care. The truth of the matter is that no matter who you are, you can't hold a candle to Donna Noble. And don't take that as an insult. No one EVER could. Because if things start getting that easy they start getting complicated. And if you are who I think you are, you know what complicated can mean, and that always takes away from just that feeling of easyness. I never had anything so easy since Sarah Jane back, way back in my fourth life. And then Sarah changed and I changed, and we let things get complicated and that was a mistake. Letting it get complicated is always a mistake, — and I'm sorry, River, but I barely know you and things are already more complicated with you than they've ever been with anyone in my life."

River conceded that point with knowing nod.

"But Donna... it was — so — easy. And there was nothing — complicated — about any of it. I never even had to argue with her about anything, not about me, personally, because she didn't want anything I wasn't already giving her, and it was just wonderful, it was like traveling with another Time Lord, but a Time Lord with passion and laughter and delight and bad, bad singing in the shower, and blimey but that woman could shout!"

River chuckled. "She sounds fabulous."

"She was," the Doctor said. "She was the most incredible person. She brought out the best in me. She really did." The Doctor sobered and looked at River. "You... you've never seen me at my best. So far you've only seen me since I lost her, and..." He shook his head. "No wonder you can't wait for whoever you think you know in the future. I'm a mess. Everything has turned hollow and empty without her. No doubt I only seem... half a soul. That's what it feels like. No wonder all you can do is harass me, I wouldn't like me like this, either."

"Did she leave you?"

"No," the Doctor said dully. "She'd never have left me."

"So what happened?" River asked.

His next words sounded empty. "I killed her."

River's mouth fell open. "What?"

He shook his head. "The same way you could say of an alcoholic that the drink killed her, or a cancer victim that leukemia killed her. She... became me. There was a human-time-lord biological metacrisis, which resulted in a physically human replicant of me—"

River cut him off. "That you left in an alternate universe with Rose, yes."

The Doctor blinked at her. He'd never mentioned Rose to River. "Yes," he said somberly. "Well, when he was created, it was a two-way metacrisis, and Donna absorbed my memories. My mind, my... self. As I do when I regenerate. It was as if I'd regenerated... into her."

River blinked. "Oh my God."

The Doctor closed his eyes at that shocked whisper. "Yes," he said.

"Donna Noble became... you," River whispered.

The Doctor nodded. "I killed her," he said. "It was far and away too much for a human mind. I was able to block the consciousness, to contain it below a psychic patch, but I couldn't remove it. All I could do was keep her away from it. Which meant I had to steal her memories away. Every memory of me, or aliens, or... everything. She had to go back to... a world... that had no idea she was the most important woman in it... Donna Noble. Shouting at the world because no one would listen..." He looked down. "I still see her, from time to time. Just to watch from a distance. I know it's dangerous, but I can't keep away. She goes for a lot of walks. As if she's looking for something, but doesn't know what it is."

He rubbed his head. "She screamed," he whispered. "As I blocked her mind, her mind screaming and screaming as I stripped her down, skinning her consciousness. She begged me... I was inside her mind, closing down all the doors, and every defense she had — every one I had — raked at me, attacking me, burning my psyche in desperation. She begged me to just let her die, and I couldn't. I just couldn't, I couldn't face the prospect of a universe without Donna Noble. I... I need her..." He started to cry again. With a defiant sniffle he forced himself to stop, scrubbing the tears from his eyes. "Maybe I deserve to die," he said. "Maybe it should end, and I should just accept it. Her mental screaming still sounds when I dream. 'Make it better. Fix it. Bring it back.'" He shook his head. "And I can't." He closed his eyes. "And now I'm so alone."

"Why don't you..." River bit it back.

"Find someone?" the Doctor asked. "Like you?"

River looked away. "I didn't mean me," she said, though she was beginning to think that might be interesting.

"There's no one else," he said. "There can't be. It's as if the universe has turned empty, there's no one left. I meet people, and no one's worthy. Not you, not anyone. And I lost myself somewhere. Without her I'm just... dangerous. I had a moment... a dark, terrible moment, when I just let go. The laws of time meant nothing — just traffic violations. And it all blew up in my face. Donna... Donna once said I needed someone. She was like you, she told me to find someone. That sometimes I needed someone to stop me. And she was right. Because without her there's no one to stop me, and I don't know how far down this pit I'm going to fall. But I just can't. There's no one else. No one else in the universe. Everything died without her. Even Donna by herself was everything. But then suddenly this happened and she became... my other self..."

Tears leaked from his eyes again. "And the worst of it was... for three hours... three precious hours... for the only time in my life... I wasn't alone. You can't know what that felt like. Even before the Time War, my people and I were not on the same... wavelength, I guess. The closest I'd ever come was the Master... I don't know if I've ever mentioned him."

River pursed her lips and carefully said nothing.

"And he was just mad. And whenever I meet myself there's always the temporal shift in my past-consciousness which just keeps me from ever liking it — not to mention, you're right, I'm not easy to get along with. But suddenly, there was Donna." He closed his eyes in a blissful remembrance. "And it was brilliant!" he whispered, reverently. "There's never been anything to touch my consciousness the way she did. Because she had me, my memories, my intellect, my psychic imprint... but she was Donna! She really was Donna! Her personality, her SELF. Shouting and unfazed and brilliant and funny and loving and there she was... linked. I could feel her psyche breathing inside me, as everyone always said I should have with my own people."

He chuckled, painfully. "Me and my fixation with humans... I think... I think it might always have been a fixation on Donna. Because there she was, Time Lord and human and everything stunning about both. It felt as if all the threads of my life had finally come together and I was tied into neat little bow, and everything, EVERYTHING made sense. From the first time I ever stepped into the TARDIS all those years ago on Gallifrey, to the moment she looked at me with those eyes that could read time... all the pieces were in place." He closed his eyes in pain. "And then I had to cut... through it...," he hissed. "And I would rather have died a thousand times!"

He could hear River's breathing, and the idea that she was there listening to this was painful, too. "And I don't care who I meet," he grumbled, "or what I'll do, or what anyone does for me in any supposed future. There will never be another Donna. No one will... no one COULD mean as much to me as she did. Because no one else made sense of my life like that."

He finally looked up at River, and saw something almost shocking. She was crying. He hadn't expected that, for all that his last few words had been intended to hurt. River wasn't Donna, couldn't be Donna, no one could be the DoctorDonna that had given him a glimpse of a lifetime of perfect companionship that had to be snatched away. But to see strong, arrogant River Song with tears in her eyes... He reached up a hand.

"Sorry," River said, snatching herself away. She pulled away and tried to scrub the tears from her face. "Sorry," she said again. "Sorry. Don't mean to do this, I'll have it under control in a minute."

The Doctor stood up, and came close to her, feeling cruel. "I didn't mean to say that," he said. "River, I know... I know that if things turn out the way I think they're going to go in that diary that you and I... or at least you and he will get very close. More than... close enough. I wasn't trying to make you feel bad..."

River rounded on him. "Shut up!" she snapped. "Do you think I'm crying for myself? Because I think 'you don't love me enough'! God, no wonder you hate me, if you think me that self-centered! I'm crying for you, you skinny ape!"

The Doctor blinked. He realized he'd been thinking of her like Rose. Rose would definitely have been thinking about herself in that instant, how she could never compare and how she wanted to be the important one.

"Do you think because I tease you and make demands of you that I don't care? Do you think I don't know how lonely you are?" River asked. "Oh, God, after all this time to find something, someone who could take that away for you, and to have to lose it? All that pain behind your eyes, all that weight! You think I wouldn't cut off my arms to take even a portion of that away for you? Someone else, some WHEN else, it wouldn't matter, just to know that pain was lessened...!" She clenched her fists. "Oh, I feel sick!"

The Doctor reached out a hand to touch her shoulder, trying to tell her it was all right — he was soldiering on, the way Donna would have wanted. But River didn't give him the chance. At the instant of his touch she wrapped her arms around him, hugging him fiercely, rules and spoilers be damned!

The Doctor tensed under her embrace for a moment, then slowly, slowly, relaxed in her arms. He sighed. The weight was still there, and all the pain, but if his soul was bleeding, at least someone was dressing the wound, now. It didn't fix it, but it helped, even that infinitesimal amount.

"I'm sorry," River whispered to him. "I'm so sorry."

The Doctor just breathed in the scent of her hair for a moment. Human sweat and scorched hair, and whatever was left of her shampoo. It smelled simple and comforting, very human. Familiar... "I've been cruel to you," he whispered. "And I'm sorry, too."

River looked up at him. "It won't be the last time," she said simply.

The Doctor glared. "Please stop that."

River smirked at him, and he realized she was teasing. His lips quirked up and he chuckled. "Why do I surround myself with women who drive me mad?" he asked.

River looked up at him. "Because we amuse you," she said. "It's nice to see you smile. I've never seen you smile before. Not with this face." She reached up and touched his cheek. "It's a nice smile," she said. "Lot of teeth."

The Doctor shook his head and sank back down onto the utility bed. "I shouldn't have shouted at you. It's not your fault my life's bollocks." He looked down at the floor. "I think I was trying to hurt you."

"I could tell," River said quietly. The Doctor looked up at her. "I know you, Doctor. There are things that don't change... I know what it's like when you're hurting... I just didn't realize you were hurting all the time."

"You're trying to tell me that a lifetime away from this it won't hurt so much?" the Doctor asked.

"No," River said. "But there are things which can put even this into perspective."

The Doctor frowned at her. "Why doesn't that reassure me?" he asked. He flipped his feet onto the bed and lay staring up at the ceiling. A loud patter of larger meteorites clattered on the roof and then faded away again to a light rattle. The Doctor sighed. "Twenty-nine hours to kill," he muttered. "Got a deck of cards? The guards at the palace stole mine."

"No," River said.

"Hm. Any other ideas?"

River cocked her head. "We could make mad, passionate love?"

The look on the Doctor's face was comical, and River burst out laughing. "I'm teasing you, sweetie, don't look so horrified!" Her laughing demeanor sobered and she stared at him. "When's the last time you slept?" she asked.

The Doctor sighed. "I don't remember."

"Too long," River said. She sat down on the bed beside him and, without asking permission, dragged his head onto her lap. With deft fingers she began massaging his temples, pulling against the skin and tenderly touching various parts of his skull.

The Doctor groaned, relaxing almost instantly. "Oh good gracious, where did you learn Time Lord mental massage?"

River looked down at him. "From me," the Doctor supplied at the same moment she said, "From you."

"Thank me for me," the Doctor muttered, and closed his eyes.

River leaned down to whisper in his ear. "Thank you for showing me how to help you." She touched another blood vessel on his scalp and added, "And thanks for trusting me enough to let me."

"I have to trust you," the Doctor murmured. "I owe you. Mm." The Doctor hummed gently as the constant singing in the back of his mind faded into unimportance. The heavy image of the ood in the snow, calling him to his death, no longer dragged at his psyche. The human scent of River Song, the gentle sound of tiny meteorites on the roof of the shelter, the feel of her fingers gently massaging the angry corners of his brain, slowly let the Doctor float away from his pain into a blissfully dreamless sleep.

River looked down at his sleeping face, and had to swallow to keep the tears at bay. This wasn't fair. She wasn't supposed to fall in love with him now. Not now, when he was so young! This was the wrong Doctor, the wrong face, the wrong time. And she loved him easily as much as she ever did. And it was different, because he was different. The Doctor once told her that on Gallifrey they didn't use the word "love" applied to people, because people were all different, and the feeling for each was different, and so couldn't be defined by any word — including love. But she used it, with the knowledge that each love was different. And the love she felt for this pain-laced, beautiful, young, skinny Doctor was different from what she felt for... for him later.

And she knew she wasn't going to get her chance with this Doctor. Because he was right. This was the end. He told her that the last time she saw him before his regeneration would be under one last shower of meteors. She hadn't realized what he'd meant until now. He was going to die. And she couldn't be there for him. And knowing that really, really hurt!

She took in a deep breath and watched him sleep, the only time she'd ever get to do so. This was it, her one, precious moment with this Doctor, the one chance she'd get to hold him and care for him and love him in any way at all. She stayed awake for as long as she could, and cherished every breath.

The Doctor opened his eyes to find River Song fast asleep, sprawled backwards on the bed. His head was still on her lap, and her hand was still laced through his hair. He didn't care to guess how long he'd been asleep — a long time, he guessed. River was less intimidating asleep. Her sardonic face was calm, and he read a lot of pain there. He wished he could know who she was — really who she was, not the character she put on for him now. Because he was becoming quite sure that her arrogance and her flippancy was as much of an act as his frenetic diffidence. She knew his name... if not now, than she would eventually. This was not a small thing. He wondered how this supposed future would come about.

Nothing was certain. There was nothing certain in the universe except that. But right now his future didn't look quite so horrible. He was rested — for the first time in weeks, he was sure — the singing in the back of his head was quieted, and he had the perfect excuse to stay still, no problems to solve, no planets to save. His head was cradled in the lap of a lovely, brilliant human woman who loved him enough to give her life for him, and he was able, for just a moment, to breathe in peace. This evening with River had given him that, telling her about Donna, hearing that she understood. It actually had helped.

Something River had said drifted back into his mind. "You said it was important I didn't know." He closed his eyes in annoyance. His future self hadn't told River about Donna, but he wasn't protecting River. He wasn't protecting Donna. He had been protecting this night. This night when he needed to talk about Donna, to tell someone who didn't know, to spend hours going on and on about his best friend, the most important woman in the universe, and to hear River's astonishment and laughter in all the right places, without it being forced or old news.

His mouth quirked. He could ALMOST forgive his future self for existing. Almost. But he couldn't quite forgive his fate for dragging this brilliant, fun, enjoyable, beautiful, sexy lifetime to a premature end. He hadn't reached that point yet. And would fight it for as long as he could.

He shifted, pulling River into an embrace. She half opened her eyes, then snuggled against him trustingly. Yes. He had to protect this night. It had just become too important to him.

They didn't speak of weighty matters once they woke. The Doctor fixed a hesitant meal out of a banana stashed in his pocket and the heavily preserved semi-food in the survival packets. River spoke to him, not about her past or his future or anything uncomfortable, but about the archeological digs she'd just been on on Metdelius V. He translated what she'd dug up into something comprehensible. It was very companionable and quiet.

Finally the patter of meteorites faded to occasional 'ring-bursts' and then finally silence. It was time to go. No more excuses. "Ookay, twist my arm," the Doctor said, as if she'd been wheedling him. "I'll take you in the TARDIS, tell me where you need to go."

River turned away from a screen she'd been poking at on the wall. "Nowhere," she said. "I've just called for an emergency transport. According to this net-feed the prince has finally realized that he is grateful for his life, and is more than willing to supply me with passage off world." She smiled at him sadly. "Besides. I think you'd rather travel alone for a while yet."

The Doctor almost sighed. He wasn't sure how he felt anymore. He just knew he was unhappy. But River was probably right. He wasn't done dodging death yet. Bermuda. He'd like to see Bermuda again. He hadn't seen it with these eyes. And River likely wouldn't be interested in getting massively drunk and dancing in a conga line, and that was about the level of seriousness he planned on suffering. And maybe he should go back to Elizabethan England? He'd love to see the Virgin Queen before she'd poisoned her face with lead based makeup. River probably wouldn't approve of any of this frivolity. "Good point. All righty, then."

"Goodbye, Doctor," River said. She held out her hand.

The Doctor caught her up in a hug. "Thank you," he whispered in her ear.

River hugged him back fiercely, but she wasn't going to look sad. "You're always welcome, sweetheart," she said.

The Doctor headed back across the plane, dotted with fresh meteorites, and River watched him go feeling a level of sadness. Finally she sat down on a metal lip on the edge of the shelter, watching the planet-rise, and waiting for the prince's transport.

Slowly a sound built in her consciousness to the side of the building, the rhythmic pulse of the TARDIS engines, wooshing behind her. She turned and just caught the sight of the TARDIS appearing by the side of the shelter. The door opened, and there stood the Doctor. The same Doctor who had just left — but different. He was wearing a different suit, which looked a little the worse for the wear, and what she could see of his face was even heavier than before. He did not come up to her. He said nothing to her. He simply looked at her. Looked at her one last time.

River smiled at him sadly, but he did not smile back. "Until then, Doctor," River whispered.

She didn't know if he heard her or not, but it didn't matter. He nodded at her, the sadness heavy on his face. Her heart clenched, a spasm of pain in sympathy and grief. Then he closed the door, and the TARDIS faded away again.

River cried.

She knew it was foolish of her. This had to happen. Everything could start for him now. He had an entire new life ahead of him — a life partially shared with her. A life for which she would die rather than lose. But she hadn't realized, as she'd teased this young Doctor and ran with him and flirted with him... that he had to die for it to happen.

River wished, for the first and only time in her life, that it might have happened differently.


End file.
